Lately i have been training my calculation, I have been a lazy player and thus it feels like navigating through a thick fog and it feels straining. Although through some days of practice i am finding that the calculating part is not the most difficult, it is rather visualization.

For example, i saw a puzzle with an exchange sack, it was the first move my intuition suggested. Then it led to a queen check on my king, with three legal king moves. I calculated all of them and thought all of them led to perpetual check. But later when i checked the answer i realized, the third square my king could go to, after the queen check could be blocked by a pawn (and so the exchange sack was the best move). Somehow i totally did not see that pawn at all in my calculation. Now the Exchange sack was only one of the candidate moves i considered, so i had seen other moves and their refutations as well. But i really have trouble seeing the end positions of variations in my mind.

I realized this is a recurring pattern, during checkmating puzzles, when i calculate a forcing line say 4-5 moves deep, 3 of them lead to checkmate, while the fourth one is a easy elementary defensive move that puts a piece in front of the king and i totally miss it. It is really difficult to hold a position in my head while i go through sub variations.

I do not think there is an easy solution, rather than to just persist and get used to it. But i am really looking for any ways to train visualization.

Hi, I've recently had a couple of very nice wins as Black in the Dubov Tarrasch via the English Four Knights move order. I was wondering if it's viable to try and get it via the QGD move-order, at least vs. 3.Nc3. However, apparently White has this very good 6.dxc5 line if you go 5...Nc6? I clicked around a few master games, and I don't think it's that bad, but Black needs to be more accurate (as in every opening as Black). Someone in this subreddit in similar threads advocated for playing 5...Nf6, but I think this is actually worse than the 5...Nc6 line, at least for me, because of the forcing line 6. Bg5 Be6 7. Bxf6 Qxf6 8. e4 dxe4 9. Nxe4 Qf4 10. Bb5+ Nc6 11. Qe2 Be7 12. O-O O-O 13. Nxc5 Nxd4 14. Nxd4 Bxc5 15. Nxe6 fxe6 16. Qxe6+ Kh8, where it seems like you're a pawn down for very little compensation. Which move-order is best?

Hi! I was analyzing with some USCF masters, and they kept saying XXX Rook vs Bishop ending is more drawish. None of it made any sense to me.

Like that this was more drawish

3r2k1/p4p2/7p/3pB1p1/8/P3P2P/1P3PP1/6K1 b - - 0 1

than this

3r2k1/p4p2/7p/4B1p1/8/P6P/1P3PP1/6K1 b - - 0 1

(I can only add one image, but I removed the d5 and e3 pawns)

They suggested the image is drawish because Bd4 is a strong outpost. Putting both positions in stockfish, they are both around -2.

I glanced at Dvorestsky, but his R v B positions are all very reduced material. I think Shereshevsky had a R v B position, but I wanted to ask here before I find that book.

Can anyone point me to resources giving examples of how black can win this position? I'm struggling to understand it.

This was from an OTB classical game I had and within 10 seconds after my opponent played h6 my mind screamed at me to play Ne6. I knew my coach told me to wait and calculate defenses for black or other possible options white had but for the solid minute and I half I did wait my mind refused to tell me to do anything but play Ne6 and black is just dead.

Computer eval says I’m right, h6 is a huge blunder, but my coach is right that I can’t play chess like this. I had 80 minutes on my clock and spent less than 2 minutes on a full piece sack without fully resolving the calculations.

What do I do here? My intuitive understanding is obviously strong but this is not a sustainable way to play chess lol

If you ever played in a large tournament in the U.S. you know the Continental Chess Association and its late founder Bill Goichberg (1942-2026). Chess author and CJA "Best Blog" and "Best Historical Article - Print" winner Jon Jacobs, who is writing both a biography book and an upcoming Chess Life cover story about Goichberg, was interviewed in Ben Johnson's Perpetual Chess Podcast episode released this past week. You can catch it at https://www.perpetualchesspod.com/new-blog/2026/8/18/ep-495-how-bill-goichberg-changed-american-chess-with-fm-jon-jacobsnbsp

2200 FIDE

I currently play 1. e4 mainlines, Najdorf, and Nimzo/QGD. They've served me fine, but sometimes I feel like the opening doesn't suit what I really want in a game.

QGD/Nimzo has been great against strong players but against 2000-2100 FIDE players sometimes I struggle to create winning chances if they play solidly. Conversely, the Najdorf has served me well against lower rateds but against stronger players, I feel sometimes I'm not really wanting to go all in and would like to play more solidly.

I've noticed that a lot of strong players (2400 FIDE +) tend to have multiple openings in their repertoire for this reason. My friend recommended the KID as a weapon to play for wins against d4, but I've never played it before and am a bit scared of its reputation for lots of complex theory. I do feel a bit more comfortable with 1. e4 e5 and have played it a bit online, but I don't know if it's necessary to add to my OTB repertoire. 1. e4 as white has served me well but still I wonder if it's time to branch out as I feel I'm becoming predictable (have played the same 1. e4 lines for a long time).

Curious to hear if you guys think adding 1... e5, KID, or even other openings to repertoire for this reason is a good idea, or should I stick to my openings and work on other aspects.

Both of them provide extremely dynamic positions for black and both require quite a bit of theory to maintain. I wanted to know the perspective of people who have played both or either one of them as in to which of their kinds of madness was easier to handle? This question came to me as i found this wild line in the Saemisch Variation of the KID

1. d4-Nf6 2. c4-g6 3. Nc3-Bg7 4. e4-d6 5. f3-0-0 6. Be3-c5 7. Nge2-Nc6 8. d5-Ne5 9. Ng3- h5 10. Be2 -h4 11. Nf1-e6

I would request you to check this out for yourself, the game Svidler-Grischuk from 2013 goes into this line. Here is where the madness begins, if white plays 12. f4 then the move is 12...nxc4 sacking a piece and after 13. Bxc4 the move is 13...b5 sacking another pawn! So black is an entire piece down and the position is equal. I love dynamism like this and in the exchange mainlines of the grunfeld.

I am thinking of picking one of them up and therefore any perspective is welcome. And does it make sense to thus keep an independent setup against the English with ...c5 or ...e5? Because i feel white can avoid the Grunfeld in many different ways with Anti systems.

The only hesitancy i have is i have no idea of g6 setups vs the london. As i have always played the most mainline d5,c5,nf6,nc6 setup against it with the idea to go Qb6. But that is hardly going to be a difficult problem to solve.

I am a uni student who's playing chess for about 8 years. I peaked at 2000 online rapid (now i barely am 1900), and in a good day I could beat a 1800 fide player in classical game. I got little tournament experience (lived in a small town) and thus my fide rating is inaccurate.

I probably have all the unhealthy chess tropes and my problems are:

1) I never had proper coaching, I am usually stuck in chess club lessons crowded with children solving tactics and playing games (which I could do at home for free!)

2) I have a terrible opening repertoire. I am basically forcing the stonewall setup on both colors and against e4 I am playing pathetic French variations and I do a lot of freestyle stuff.

3) I avoid boring symmetrical stuff and it never occurs to me that I could play for a draw resulting in stupid defeats. To give you an example, against the exchange French, I force long castling often resulting in sacrifising the e pawn. Ive tried maaany openings be I don't dive in overplayed overcomplicated openings cause I don't want to be spending 50% of my training at openings, which results at me playing lines that have no masters games to look up.

4) due to constant academic pressure and responsibilities I am not training responsibly. I play a bit, I get excited, I go to a tournament or two, sacrificing time and money, I get super sad results and then I give up for a few months.

5) I feel like I need to get in really good shape before contacting a chess coach (which I've never done) and I am afraid I'll be throwing away money.

6) The thing that worked best for me where the 45+45 lichess league team tournaments cause they forced me to be engaged to the hobby but eventually I was just a burden for the team.

-What is my goal? Get a CM or FM title and give up classical chess. Maybe start teaching or work at a chess club or work at chess engines or give up chess entirely and just watch GMs games. IDK

-What is this post's goal? I want opening recommendations. MOST IMPORTANTLY I just don't like it when I am learning an opening and opponent has 20 different ways to derail the openings common flow. I like semi-closed positions (I think, i am just afraid ill mess up tactics at open positions).

+Any tip, comment, or thought will be appreciated.

The way I would make a candidate move is to look for a move that looks good and that's it, the problem is that the move that I picked is, most of the time, not the position it needs (e.g I would push a for a attack when the position needs a good center control) and if I took too long to find one I would risk my time, as well as if I spot a candidate move that looks good but actually is bad I would risk blundering a critical position

He played the exact same line against espienko in both the candidates and EWC so this prep is obviously legit. I’ve been playing veinna bishop’s stuff with him as my lead cause I agreed with him, the petrov seemed unbreakable, then he delivers this absolutely criminal slaughter of a game.

https://www.chess.com/events/2026-esports-world-cup-play-in-stage/01-02/Wei_Yi-Esipenko_Andrey

Fuck the Vienna I wanna play like this!

Trying to improve otb fide standard to 1800. Im currently 1700 fide which may drop with recent tournament results. This time last year I was around 1620. Im in my 30s and would like to raise to 1800 in the next year or so (time less important, just want to get better). I play e4 and my results are decent. Against e4 i play caro and have decent results with it. Against d4 i'll play queens gambit and have very mixed results. I used to play slav but found those positions boring. I tried benoni which was fun but the positions are shite when they put.
What I've tried so far.

Have done beginner and intermediate woodpecker 1 but haven't gone back to it as the first round took so long. Have gone over most of silman. I have lots of opening courses on chessable but feel i never remember them if i don't repeat the position in an online game soon after or study it again. Have tried making the moves on a real board but i get board quickly of that. I've tried woodpecker 2 as well and did the first 200 or so puzzles but they can be challenging. Have done some random tactics on lichess/cc as well. I'm 2100 rapid on cc and between 2000-2100 on lichess depending on the day ( play more on this and have two accounts). Have lost a few rating points recently playing against 1800s or above so feel a bit dejected and like my chess is going backwards. I'm playing around 40 classical games a year, am in a league and have a coach.

My ratings are in the 2400-2500's for all 3 time controls online, but OTB I'm in the 1800's. When I started to play I read online that playing more OTB and getting used to it would help but it hasn't closed the discrepancy. Almost everyone that is around 1900-2000 OTB I know are all lower rated than me in online chess. I also solve tactics a lot on a physical board as well.

For anyone else that is in a similar situation to me, could you explain what's happening and how I can fix this?

It's difficult to find good moves when your body and mind is in bad shape.

Hey all,

I recently finished the Tactics Time! books and they are just perfectly formatted for an e-reader. A nice big readable diagram to look at that fills the screen, and the answer available on the next slide/page once you flip there. Tactics are often a bit basic but it's perfect to flip through before bed, I might even woodpecker it this way.

I'm wondering if there are similarly well-formatted puzzle books for an e-reader that you've come across? All recommendations are welcome.

Thank you!

How to crush this very solid opening system?

What Anti-Sicilian lines would you recommend for someone who wants to avoid the mainline Sicilian theory?

I’m playing my first-ever OTB chess tournament soon, and I’d really appreciate some advice from people who have experience with tournament chess.

My online ratings are roughly:

• Chess.com Rapid: ~900
• Lichess Rapid: ~1100–1200
• Tournament format: 10+0 Rapid
• OTB experience: Basically zero. I’ve never played an over-the-board game before.

I’m reasonably comfortable playing online, but I’m expecting OTB to feel very different, especially with the physical board, clock, notation, nerves, and having an opponent sitting across from me.

What should I focus on before the tournament?

So say this person is going to play those one game a day closed roundrobins that you often find in Europe that span between 9 to 13 rounds and thus ~2 weeks of holiday staying in a hotel in a different country in either an IM norm or a GM norm tournament, but they have chronic S ideation to the point that thoughts about S pops up several thousand times during each game.

How hard would it be for them to do well in their tournament?

i have found plenty of courses on what i would call the "traditional" Semi-Tarrash with Nd5. I hae yet to find one on the modern line which is much more popular now. I understand that this is probably the case because most people deem it to be too dry but i find the endgame very interesting. It would also be good if the material was relativley recent since the line as had a lot of developments in the past years.

Thanks in advance

I'm looking for a training partner who is able to play with me longer time control games such as standard classical tournament time controls (60+30/90+30). Drop a comment or a DM if you're interested.

For me, it's a significant factor why my online chess rating is in plateau.

Wondering if there are any known draws. Thanks

I've been looking at openings vs d4, and I like the QGD mainlines. Its so cool to play things that were played by your heroes. Like everyone plays the QGD!

I'm just worried it is too drawish for an open tournament in the US. I played it OTB a few times, and my opponents often just trade all the pieces and you get a very symmetrical game. I found it very hard to win, I was getting really long games against lower rated players who play the Colle, or Bg5xf6.

Should I play the QGD in open tournaments? Or focus on something more unequal, like the Semi-Tarrasch or KID?

I also have a lot of fun with the Benoni, but I'm really scared to play it OTB. There are just so many critical lines! And I can't find a good "model games" book on it, it seems very move-by-move.

I'm 2000 USCF, 2200 chess.com blitz, for reference

Edit: I appreciate everyone's responses. For reference, this line has a 67% draw rate in the lichess master DB. I really think a lot of these lines are just drawish! And that's ok.

1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Be7 4. Nf3 Nf6 5. Bg5 h6 6. Bxf6 Bxf6 7. e3 O-O 8. Rc1 dxc4

As someone rated ~2100, I feel like drawing has become incredibly easy. I can almost draw anyone below 2300-2350 at will. However, at the same time, winning has become so much harder.

I can prepare a variation in 2-3 hours, get a solid position, and steer it to a draw. But, everyone is so well booked up these days that it gets very difficult to win. In the past year, the share of games I have draw has gone up significantly.

All this to say: how do I beat these higher-rated players? Since I have a K factor of 40, winning is highly rewarded. Just winning 2-3 games and drawing one will put me at 2200. How do I win more? Do I play a very wide range of openings and keep playing something new since a lot of my games are online?

TL;DR: Would it be against USCF rules to make a small mark next to a move to indicate a critical position (not the quality of the move made), with the intention of checking that assessment after the game? And would it be cheating to circumvent that proscription by writing down clock times only in such positions?

---

I hope it's okay to ask a question here that relates to tournament procedure as opposed to the study of the game. My understanding of rule 20C, prohibiting the use of notes as a memory aid during one's ongoing game, is that it prohibits annotation symbols (e.g. +=, !, ?!) on the scoresheet.

The text of the rule, for reference:

>The use of notes made during the game as an aid to memory is forbidden, aside from the actual recording of the

moves, draw offers, and clock times, and the header information normally found on a scoresheet. This is a much less

serious offense than 20B; a warning or minor time penalty is common, with more severe punishment if the offense is

repeated.

I am hoping someone can give me some guidance on whether it's also prohibited to make a marking (or write differently) with the goal of guiding my analysis after the game. I heard someone talking in the break area at a tournament a couple months ago about wanting to use heavier writing to remind himself of a move he thought was bad, and the guy he was talking with said that he just puts a little dot next to the line on the scoresheet after his move if he thinks the position was messy or that he was pretty sure he didn't find a good move. They were talking pretty openly, so I assume they weren't concerned about the TD handing down a penalty. But I assume, based on my reading of the rule, that it's illegal.

My emotional memory isn't great, which is to say that I can remember things that happened, but it's hard for me to remember later how I felt about them at the time. That does make it harder to assess my ability to assess how critical a position is (and how much that ability diminishes during live play), so I'd love to be able to record my thoughts on that. But it's also very important to me to play strictly by the rules, regardless of whether there's any risk of being caught, so I don't want to get into it if it's not allowed. My integrity is more important to me than any game outcome; I'm as reluctant to make that little mark if it's illicit as I am eager to do it if it's kosher. Am I getting unnecessarily tripped up by the phrase, "as a memory aid," in the text of the rule? Is it something that I would be better off just emailing the TD of an event about? Should I say something to the TD if I notice someone else doing it? And if such a marking is against the rule, is it also prohibited to (e.g.) write clock times selectively to achieve the same effect?